A few weeks ago I joined an expedition of field scientists and travelled with them to a place deep in the Peruvian Amazon Jungle called the Boiling River. It is called that because thermal activity heats the river to 99c (210f) such that the water literally boils. I was invited by the leader of the expedition—geothermal scientist and National Geographic Explorer, Andres Ruzo, who brought the Boiling River to global attention. My role on the expedition was to assist the field scientists in their research (soil, water, & microbe sampling, and studying the ants, bats, and bees around the river).

In the months and weeks leading up to the expedition, we were told many times that it would be dangerous. But seeing the steam rising from the literally boiling water was sobering nonetheless. Equally sobering was our daily ‘commute’ to certain upstream sections of the river where the water was cooler but still hot enough to give you instant second degree burns if you fell in—and the obstacles we had to traverse with scalding water beneath us.

One of the reasons I had decided to join the expedition was to see the beauty of the jungle. Everywhere I looked made me feel awe—the kind of awe only nature can inspire. The kind of awe that fills your heart, that makes you catch your breath, that leaves you feeling grateful for every moment you get to experience it.

The other thing that left me in awe was the dedication of the scientists I assisted, who worked in such dangerous places, and devoted their lives to understanding the jungle, as well as to protecting it. The Boiling River is unique in the world. It holds the promise of scientific discoveries that could benefit humankind in many meaningful ways. The Amazon is loosing an area the size of a football field every 15 seconds. I knew that. But being there and seeing it makes that loss register far more acutely and personally than it had before.

Being there taught me to respect the jungle, its dangers and its gifts. Andres Ruzo had worked with the local shaman for many years, so we followed local tradition as much as possible. The Yucamama (mother of the waters) is the most sacred part of the river, where hot and cold waters mix underneath a serpent-shaped boulder. We paused there on our first day to ask for the jungle’s blessing.

Then we hiked further upstream to immerse ourselves in the (much cooler) waters and complete the ritual. Along the way we saw a Lonomia caterpillar, which looked very cute but as Andres yelled out the moment he saw someone approach it, makes you “bleed from your eyes and die.” it is known, appropriately, as the Assassin Caterpillar.

Needless to say, by the time we reached the immersion site, I was eager to receive the jungle’s blessing, quite eager. It was also incredibly hot and humid, and our clothes were wet from sweat. We waded, ankle deep, through the cooler water, until we reached a very specific spot.

The first part of the hike served as a sharp reminder of how foreign and dangerous the jungle was, at least to me. But the ritual we performed changed my outlook entirely. Giving respect to the jungle and to the traditions of the local people made the jungle feel much less foreign. I didn’t know most of the people I was with but sharing the ritual together bonded us and made me feel closer to them. As for the danger aspect, following in the traditions of the locals comforted me. They had lived there their entire lives. They knew how to be in harmony with the river and the jungle. Andres had already led over 20 expeditions to the Boiling River. Conveying the wisdom of the locals to us and sharing their knowledge, made those dangers seem manageable.

The living conditions at camp were… shall we say, rustic. Dead bats on the floor, tarantulas on the screen windows, and other jungle critters were excited to visit my sleeping quarters. More about that, and what I learned about leaning into discomfort, in my next newsletter.

The Lessons I Learned on Day One

1. Putting yourself in an uncomfortable and unfamiliar situation will teach you a lot about yourself and can lead to rapid personal growth. Overcoming challenges, especially immersive ones is extremely empowering. You do have to take that first leap of faith and put yourself in the situation first. If you need help with that, check out this newsletter from the Nov 18, 2025 edition. Therapy takes a while and other life lessons can be slow. Being in challenging situations that you cannot leave on a whim forces you to adapt and by doing so—you will achieve almost instant personal growth. A hard earned but well deserved shortcut.

2. Learn from the people who know the system. Being in an unfamiliar situation can feel unsettling and anxiety producing, like your first days in a new job or on a new team. The best way to get comfortable quickly is to observe those who have been there a long time and who know the culture. Especially in toxic or challenging work cultures, those who have survived there longest know how to navigate the landscape. That does not mean you have to emulate them, if their conduct doesn’t suit you. But being informed will help soothe your anxiety and apprehension.

3. Rituals are fast-tracks to connection. Teams at work and groups both in and out of the workplace sometimes have ‘rituals’ or traditions they practice (e.g., weekly after work drinks at a specific establishment, themed dress codes—wearing Hawaiian shirts on Fridays, Monday huddle—to share something personal from the weekend). If the group has a ritual, participating in it (happily and with the right attitude), will create bonds with existing group members and rapidly integrate you into the team. Of course, not all groups have rituals, but look out for any unofficial ones that might exist.

Worth Checking Out:

1. Andres Ruzo’s TED Talk about the history of the Boiling River: The back story is fascinating, and it goes back hundreds of years.

   

Some aspects of post-vacation blues might be unavoidable because of our brain chemistry. The excitement, novelty, and connection we feel on many vacations cause surges in neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin. When you get home those levels take a dive, causing a marked shift in mood that makes you feel blue.

The mistake many of us make though, is to interpret our low mood as reflecting the quality and worthiness of our lives: If coming back to my regular life makes me feel this bad, my life must suck.

Well, no.

What sucks at the moment are your neurotransmitters. You need to give your brain a minute to readjust. Going from freedom to structure and responsibilities, getting back into habits after being away from them, and reestablishing our tolerance of normative frustrations and stressors takes a little time. Truly, a little. Often just a few days. A general rule of thumb is that the longer the vacation, the longer the adjustment period when you get back.

How to Ease the Transition Back to Regular Life

Help your brain adjust:

Since our brain is reacting to the sharp shift from holiday to grind, anything you can do to soften that transition will help modify the drop in neurotransmitter levels. Keep the vacation spirit alive by going through your media and reliving all the good moments. Reflect on your experiences with the people who were there, either in person or via calls or text. Tell other people about the vacation, but be careful not to bore them. They know what the Empire State Building looks like so, unless you were there when that couple climbed to the top of the spire, a sentence or two is sufficient. It is best to stick with your emotional impressions. What moved you? What surprised you? What awed you?

Modify your external environment:

Schedule a light day on your first day back in order to ease the dread of going back to work. Unpack and organize your space as soon as you can because the clutter can create stress. Put a photo from the trip on your desk to remind you of how much fun you had. Adjust your eating and sleep schedules to minimize jet lag. Get back to healthy eating and to your workout routines. The sooner you get back into your routines, the better.

Change your thinking:

Remind yourself that your mood is low because your brain is adjusting to a big change in circumstance and that you will feel better very soon. It might be good to postpone big decisions until you no longer feel out of sorts. Though, there is one decision that would be good to make sooner rather than later—where and when your next vacation will take place. Having another holiday planned will give you something to look forward to and take the edge of that ‘the vacation is over’ feeling. This vacation might be over but there is another one on the horizon.

Worth Checking Out:

Thank you to all of you who sent me your book recommendations! There were too many to include here but here are a couple that you might enjoy:

1. SuperBetter: The Power of Living Gamefully by Jane McGonigal (Penguin Books, 2016). McGonigal reveals a decade’s worth of scientific research into the ways all games—including videogames, sports, and puzzles—change how we respond to stress, challenge, and pain. She explains how we can cultivate new powers of recovery and resilience in everyday life simply by adopting a more “gameful” mind-set. Plus she’s an identical twin (like me) and both her and her sister have TED Talks (like me and my brother).

   

2. Whole Brain Living: The Anatomy of Choice and the Four Characters That Drive Our Life by Jill Bolte Taylor (Hay House LLC, 2021). Jill is a neuroanatomist. In this book, she explains how each hemisphere has both an emotional brain and a thinking brain, these four distinct modules of cells as four characters that make up who we are: Character 1, Left Thinking; Character 2, Left Emotion; Character 3, Right Emotion; and Character 4, Right Thinking.

FOMO is defined as a fear of missing out on “rewarding experiences” that are enjoyed by one’s social group, friends, or family members. But is FOMO really just about missing out on fun?

In a recent study, participants indicated how much FOMO they would feel if they missed out on two different events. One event was described as a demanding, uncomfortable, and nerve-wracking event with close friends. The other was described as an enjoyable experience with people who were not close friends.

Participants felt significantly more FOMO about missing out on the unenjoyable experience with friends than the enjoyable one with non-friends.

This finding suggests that the social bonding involved in an experience can be a much bigger driver of FOMO than the experience itself. After all, participating in experiences with friends is rewarding not just for the experience itself, but because of the sense of connection and belonging it creates, both through bonding with members of our social group in the moment, and by the memories, jokes, and narratives that are shared about the event afterward.

It is those aspects that make FOMO so distressing. You’re not just feeling the pain of missing out on a social experience. You’re worrying that your absence might affect the relationships, dynamics, and inside jokes that shape the group afterward. Indeed, that is often what underlies FOMO: anxiety about the impact our absence might have on our relationships and standing within the group: less closeness, lower status, being less liked, or even being excluded in the future.

We can’t predict such outcomes but we can certainly worry about them. The question is whether those fears are realistic.

In another study, participants were asked to consider a situation in which they were invited to a road trip with three close friends. Some participants were instructed to imagine that they were unable to attend while others were asked to imagine that they attended but one of their friends could not. Both groups were asked to indicate their perceptions of the social bonding that would take place on the trip and the negative social ramifications of missing out.

Both groups made similar assumptions about how bonding the experience would be. But participants who imagined themselves being unable to go rated the social consequences of missing the trip as significantly greater than participants who imagined it was their friend who would be missing out.

In other words, FOMO has two parts. The first is the sadness of missing a bonding experience. The second is the anxiety that missing it will somehow weaken your place in the group. The first part may be realistic. The second is often exaggerated.

How FOMO Can Be Reduced

Once we understand that FOMO is often about belonging rather than fun, we can address the real fear underneath it. The next time you are missing an event and feel FOMO kicking in, try one of these three strategies.

1. Remind yourself that your place in the group is not based on one event

Think back to previous moments when you felt connected to these people: dinners, trips, conversations, shared jokes, or times you supported one another. This helps remind your brain that your relationships are built on more than the one thing you are missing.

2. Picture the next time you will connect

FOMO makes the missed event feel as if it is the only bonding opportunity that matters. It isn’t. Imagine the next dinner, walk, call, trip, or gathering you will attend. This helps shift your focus from I’m being left out to I’ll have other chances to feel close again.

3. Reverse the roles

Since we tend to exaggerate the social consequences of missing out on bonding experiences when making judgments for ourselves, assume your friend was the one who couldn’t go. What you would say to them to reassure them about the potential social ramifications of missing it.

In early studies, all three of these strategies reduced FOMO, especially the first.

Lastly, since social media has been found to be a potent contributor to FOMO, when you’re in the grip of acute FOMO, the one place you do not want to be is on your phone. You can be having the time of your life on a romantic vacation with your new love but a picture of your friends laughing and smiling together in a bar, will still sting.

So stay away from social media until you feel more settled.

Worth Checking Out:

I would like to feature your recommendations too

Let me know some of the books that had a big impact on you, that changed your perspective or how you think, or that taught you something you didn’t know about yourself. Leave a comment with your thoughts or write them to teamguy@guywinch.com. Tell me the book title, the author, and why you’re recommending it.

I will include some of your recommendations in an upcoming newsletter.

Thank you!

Researchers who studied the psychology of spoiler preferences found that the issue goes far beyond whether a person likes surprises. Spoilers are not simply bites of information; they change the emotional experience you are about to have. The question the researchers tried to answer was, do they do so for the better or for the worse?

One early study of spoilers found that people sometimes enjoyed short stories more when they had been spoiled beforehand. The assumption was that knowing the ending reduced the mental strain of figuring out what was going on and what would happen next, and that gave the readers greater enjoyment to enjoy the ‘journey.’ The study made headlines at the time—Spoilers do not spoil stories!

But as with most of human psychology, the truth is not that simple or straightforward.

More studies soon followed. Some found that unspoiled stories were rated as more fun, suspenseful, moving, and enjoyable overall. Others found that spoilers could reduce enjoyment, especially for television episodes rather than short stories, which makes sense. A short story can often be appreciated for its craft, structure, or meaning; a television episode is more likely to be experienced as an emotional event, especially when we are invested in the characters.

Indeed, spoilers do not have a universal effect one way or the other because our emotional experience varies greatly based on what we’re watching or reading. Our approach to spoilers depends on whether we’re seeking an emotional roller coaster ride, a reason to sob, to be in taut suspense, or a socially acceptable way of having anxiety for two hours while lying on our couch under a blanket.

Spoilers make the experience more emotionally manageable for some. As such, they’re basically using spoilers to regulate their emotions. If suspense thrills you, the uncertainty that comes with it is part of the pleasure. But if it feels too stressful, the uncertainty becomes the obstacle to pleasure. Knowing what happens can lower the emotional volume enough for the person to stay engaged.

A recent study titled, Does the Dog Die? found that the more concerned viewers were about the dog and how they would feel during the show, the more likely they were to choose spoiler information. The spoilers helped the viewers protect themselves from feeling too distressed and upset. If you’re curious about what happened to the dog, I can’t help you. I purposefully skipped over that part of the article. However feel free to visit doesthedogdie.com, for crowdsourced trigger warnings about TV shows and movies including whether a pet dies.

Spoiler-avoiders, on the other hand, want the experience to hit them in the chest exactly as designed. To them, spoilers are emotional interference. They do what the word suggests—they spoil the experience. That’s why some people are so adamant about avoiding spoilers for shows, books, or films they love. The more attached they are, the more carefully they want to guard the purity of their experience.

Interestingly, we are not always good at predicting how spoilers will affect us. One study found that people tend to overestimate how much outcome spoilers will hurt their enjoyment and underestimate the damage caused by process spoilers. Knowing what happens may not always ruin the story, but knowing how it happens often can. “They don’t end up together” is one kind of spoiler. “They don’t end up together because she discovered the letter he hid in the piano bench, confronts him at Whole Foods, where he admits he’s in love with his anonymous kidney donor” is another.

Managing Uncertainty and Anticipation

The real psychological question spoiler-preferences raise is about how we manage uncertainty and anticipation. Some people calm themselves by ‘knowing’ while others feel energized by ‘not knowing.’ Some people want just enough information to feel safe but not so much that the experience goes flat. And some people insist they hate spoilers, then spend forty-five minutes scrolling reading spoiler filled reviews “just to check one thing,” which while not a moral failing is probably a felony in certain fandoms.

That difference shows up in other areas of life too. A low stakes example would be whether you want a relationship conversation previewed with “Can you tell me what this is about before we talk?” Another would be whether you watch every video you can find of the place you’re going on vacation or avoid them so you can see it with fresh eyes when you get there. At the far more serious end of the spectrum, the same question can become excruciating: would you want to know whether you carried a gene for a fatal disease that has no cure, or would you rather go on living without that knowledge hanging over you?

Spoilers are just one of the many decisions we make about how much uncertainty we can tolerate, how much information we need, and whether knowing in advance will help us prepare for an experience so we can cope better, or rob us of its surprises and pleasures.

The bottom line is that your spoiler preference does not reveal whether you are emotionally fragile because you want to know the ending, or emotionally superior because you refuse to. It simply reveals the kind of emotional experience you are trying to create for yourself and whether uncertainty feels like a threat to your enjoyment or the very thing that creates it.

Worth Checking Out:

At first, the changes are subtle and easy to dismiss. Conversations become more transactional. You talk about schedules, errands, work logistics, or the kids, but not about yourselves. You spend more time side-by-side than truly together. Intimacy becomes less frequent. What once felt warm and connected begins to feel emotionally flat.

The troubling part about emotional drifting is that it usually happens slowly enough that couples adapt to it in real time. It begins to feel normal even as loneliness begins to set in.

Emotional disengagement does not necessarily mean that the relationship is failing or that love has disappeared. But it does mean that certain psychological patterns, stress, exhaustion, emotional habits, and relational dynamics are pushing people apart and that insufficient efforts are being made to stop that process.

Common Causes of Emotional Distance and What You Can Do About Them

One or Both Partners Need Some Alone Time

Many people—especially those with young children, demanding jobs, or overstimulating lives—become emotionally overloaded. When that happens, they often stop seeking connection not because they no longer love their partner, but because they have no psychological bandwidth left. They try to get it by ‘disappearing’ into phones, television, social media, gaming, podcasts, or headphones. To their partner, it can feel rejecting and personal. But often, they are not seeking distance from you as much as they are seeking relief from constant input, demands, stimulation, and responsibility.

If you suspect this is happening, approach it collaboratively rather than critically:

You seem overwhelmed lately.

Do you feel like you’re getting enough time to yourself?

It’s been a lot recently. Should we talk about each of us getting some alone time to recharge?

Stress, Anxiety, or Depression

One of the most common reactions to chronic stress or emotional distress is withdrawal.

When people feel psychologically overwhelmed, they often narrow their focus to survival and functioning. Their emotional energy becomes consumed by work pressures, anxiety, burnout, financial concerns, family problems, or depression. As a result, they have less emotional presence available for their relationship.

As I emphasize in my recent book Mind Over Grind: How to Break Free When Work Hijacks Your Life, stress is usually a relationship problem as much as an individual one. Chronic stress makes people less affectionate, more irritable, less communicative, and more likely to isolate.

In such cases, addressing the stress and finding ways to lower it should be the first course of action (say, by reading a book…).

They Are Drifting (Emotionally) from the Relationship

Sometimes emotional distance does reflect growing disconnection from the relationship itself.

It is important to discuss your concerns with your partner but timing and approach matter enormously. Don’t raise relationship concerns in the middle of conflict or out of the blue. Ask for time to talk so your partner can mentally and emotionally prepare.

And when you do talk, make understanding your first priority. If they become defensive or accusatory, try to resist the urge to immediately explain, rebut, or counterattack. Focus first on fully understanding how they experience the relationship and what they feel is missing from it.

If your partner seems unwilling to engage in those conversations at all—or if every attempt immediately shuts down—couples therapy can help interrupt patterns that have become too entrenched to solve alone.

You’ve Fallen into a Pursue-Withdraw Cycle

A common relational dynamic in these situations is for one partner to pursue connection more intensely. That might look like seeking reassurance, wanting more time together, asking repeatedly what’s wrong, or becoming more emotionally vigilant. The other partner can experience this pursuit as pressure, dependency, or criticism, and then take a step back to regain breathing room. That withdrawal then intensifies the first partner’s anxiety and emotional pursuit, and the cycle escalates.

The first (albeit very difficult) thing to try in this dynamic is to pursue less for a period of time (say one month). Often, that will make your partner more available. If that does not work, then you should have a conversation with them to understand their perceptions of why there is distance between you.

You’ve Fallen into a Criticism-Withdrawal Cycle

The other common cycle couples fall into is one in which one partner feels hurt by the distance and that hurt makes them more critical than they realize. Their communication gradually becomes dominated by irritation, corrections, expressions of resentment, and frustration, sighs, negative tones, and even subtle contempt.

The other person finds many of the interactions to be unpleasant so they withdraw to not feel criticized. It’s difficult to feel close to someone when they convey that you’re constantly failing. But that withdrawal, of course, makes the first partner even more critical.

A very general communication guideline for couples is the “80-20 rule”: At least 80 percent of your interactions should be neutral or positive and only a small minority negative, corrective, or conflict-oriented. That means putting some criticisms aside, but also adding in a lot of positive or neutral content.

Emotional Distance Is Easier to Reverse Earlier Than Later

One of the biggest reasons emotional drifting becomes dangerous is that couples often wait too long to address it. They excuse it, see it as temporary, feel reluctant to have an uncomfortable discussion, or worry that opening the topic will prompt their partner to say, You’re right. I want out.

But if you catch it in time, that is an unlikely outcome.

And if it’s been going on for a while, it can still be reversed if it’s addressed.

Silence is unlikely to resolve emotional drifting—healthy communication and mutual understanding might.

Worth Checking Out:

1. Leave the Lights On: How Joyful Decisions Can Save Our Species by Elizabeth Dunn and Jiaying Zhao ( Avery, 2026). Sometimes it’s hard not to feel burned out by climate change. So many of us want to make a positive impact but feel helpless, discouraged by doom and gloom. What if there’s a secret weapon hiding in our everyday habits? Leave the Lights On reveals how tweaking everyday decisions around food, travel, housing, and shopping can nudge us toward a tipping point of mass action—without tipping us into burnout. Highly recommended and a great way to feel empowered and yes, even joyful for being able to do something about climate change.

   

We’ve all heard the phrase forgive and forget, often said with confidence by someone who wasn’t the one who was hurt. But does forgiveness make the memory of the offense fade?

Think back to a time you experienced a betrayal, a lie, a broken promise, or a moment of emotional neglect by someone you trusted. Those kinds of offenses can stay with us for a long time.

So what exactly is the value of forgiveness—what does it actually do?

What is it that makes authentic forgiveness possible?

And if forgiveness does benefit our emotional health, does that mean unforgiveness is emotionally unhealthy?

Forgiveness Doesn’t Erase the Memory, It Updates It

A recent study suggests that when we forgive someone, our brain may update the emotional meaning of the memory such that it becomes less painful. In the study, participants were shown unpleasant images that were chosen for them deliberately by other people. Later, the participants learned that one of the offending people had a reason for doing so, understood the impact of their actions, felt remorse, and apologized—and were asked to forgive them. The next day, participants were shown the images again. Compared to upsetting images chosen by someone they had not forgiven, the images linked to the forgiven person caused less distress than they had before. Their emotional charge had softened.

Brain scans offered a clue about why. Areas involved in understanding another person’s perspective and storing memories seemed to work together during forgiveness. The researchers concluded that forgiveness may incorporate new information into the old memory that updates it and makes it less painful. It loses some of its sharpness because the meaning attached to it has changed.

In other words, we don’t forgive and forget; we forgive and update.

But for that to happen, our forgiveness must be authentic—we have to truly feel it. So what do we need from the other person in order for real forgiveness to happen?

What We Need in Order to Experience True Forgiveness

A second recent study helps answer that. It looked at moments in couples in which one partner violated the expectations or trust of the other by lying, being unfaithful, breaking promises, being inconsiderate, being overly critical and other hurtful actions.

What made this study interesting is the researchers did not look at these transgressions through the lens of forgiveness but through the lens of unforgiveness.

Unforgiveness is more complicated than simply failing to forgive. It can include the belief that what happened was unforgivable, it can involve continued hurt and rumination, anger or resentment, and a changed perception of the person who caused the injury. If you’ve been seriously hurt by someone, you know that it’s not just about coming to terms with what happened, but with what it means about the person who did it.

That’s why some offenses can be so destabilizing. The person now looks different to you, as does the relationship.

The study found that offended partners reported less unforgiveness when their partner listened, cared, validated their feelings, and seemed emotionally present after the violation. They were far more unforgiving when they perceived their partner as insensitive, dismissive, detached, or unwilling to acknowledge their pain.

These two studies make it clear that forgiveness isn’t just about an apology. It depends on the efforts the other person makes to repair the rupture in the relationship. When we’ve been really hurt, apologies alone are not sufficient to warrant true forgiveness. What does warrant true forgiveness is staying emotionally present long enough to understand the impact of what they did, listening without immediately defending themselves, validating our hurt, and acknowledging the ways in which the relationship was damaged. Such efforts are often necessary to trigger forgiveness just as their absence increases unforgiveness.

The process goes like this: Serious efforts at repair lead to more authentic forgiveness (and less unforgiveness), which updates the memory of the transgression so it becomes less painful.

The Value of Unforgiveness

Forgiveness is often discussed as if it is always the healthiest response while unforgiveness is always a sign of bitterness or emotional immaturity. But that overlooks situations in which unforgiveness may be signaling a lack of repair. If the injury was serious, if accountability has not happened, if the hurtful behavior is ongoing, or if the injured person does not yet feel seen and emotionally safe, unforgiveness can be adaptive because it is protective.

Of course, remaining stuck in anger and rumination can be painful and corrosive. Carrying resentment indefinitely can keep the injury alive long after the event has passed. But that does not mean forgiveness should or could be rushed. If it is said before it feels authentic, the memory of the hurt might remain strong.

The real question is therefore not whether to forgive or not to forgive. It’s: What do we need from the other person for the repair to feel more substantial, for our forgiveness to feel more authentic, for our memory to be properly updated?

Worth Checking Out:

1. No Todo Es Urgente: Cómo Liberarte Cuando El Trabajo Se Apodera de Tu Vidas: by Guy Winch (Aguilar, 2026). Mind Over Grind just came out in Spanish! It is now available in eBook and Audiobook. And no, I did not do the reading for the audiobook—my Spanish no es bueno.

   

It can be something as small and simple as being on their phone during dinners after you both agreed to put the phone aside. You remind them to put their phone aside several times and then you get frustrated and bring it up. You point to the number of times they were on the phone, including that their phone is in their hand at that very moment. All you hope for is a quick ‘sorry’ and for them to put down their phone but they shrug off the facts and refuse to take any responsibility.

Instead, their reactions range from denial (I wasn’t on my phone, I just checked something), to defensiveness, (Why are you making such a big deal of this?), to counterattacks, (You’re on your phone all the time!—even though you put your phone aside during dinners as per your agreement.)

Their consistent inability to admit they’re at fault might seem like stubbornness, defensiveness, and/or hostility, but a deeper psychological dynamic is often involved: They’re protecting a brittle ego—a fragile sense of self.

An Apology Implies More than Merely Admitting a Mistake

For people who refuse to apologize, the act of apologizing carries far more significance than it does for the rest of us. Most of us think of apologizing as admitting we did something wrong. But for those who cannot apologize, the experience of admitting wrongdoing does not mean: “I did something bad.” It means: “I am bad.”

In other words, they are unable to separate their actions from their identity. Their ego is so fragile that ideas such as, I said something hurtful. I handled that poorly. I should have done better feel like global and threatening assertions about who they are. They would experience an admission about being inconsiderate as an admission that they were fundamentally selfish. If they acknowledged forgetting something important, it would be tantamount to admitting they’re stupid or incompetent.

That is why apologies feel so psychologically dangerous to them and why arguments escalate so quickly. They’re not defending their actions; they’re defending their basic character. Their denial provides them emotional safety from the harsh implications of the accusation (that they did something wrong), while their anger creates distance from the person they experience as ‘attacking’ them.

Their inability to accept the ‘evidence’ and their distortion of the facts might seem willful, but it is often unconscious. Because the threat to their ego is so significant, their unconscious coping mechanisms fly into action and deny or distort a reality that is too psychologically devastating for them to be able to consciously accept.

Refusing to Admit They Hear You Does Not Mean They Didn’t Hear You

It might sound as if getting through to someone who refuses to admit they’re wrong is hopeless but it is not. Surprisingly, just because they won’t admit to hearing your, doesn’t necessarily mean they didn’t hear you. And it doesn’t mean they won’t change either. For example, the person in the no-phone-during-dinner example might insist they did nothing wrong but the next night, they might leave their phone in their pocket, or check it minimally. They will never admit you were right, but they might course-correct anyway.

To be clear, when we’re hurt, it’s natural to want an acknowledgment and an apology. But if someone in our life is psychologically incapable of giving us the emotional resolution we deserve, it does not mean change is impossible.

And while that will not feel as satisfying or validating as you would like, it still counts.

Worth Checking Out:

1. The Squeaky Wheel: Complaining the Right Way to Get Results, Improve Your Relationships, and Enhance Self-Esteem by Guy Winch. This book about the psychology of complaining is my first—it came out over a decade a go. I don’t talk about it as much as I do my other books but I should because it’s a really fun read. There wasn’t a ton of research about complaining psychology at the time but I dove into what existed and had a great time doing it. This book has also been translated into many languages and fun fact: almost every country that bought the translation rights wrote to my agent that they were excited to publish it because “As everyone knows, [Polish, Chinese, Koreans, French people, etc.] are the biggest complainers!” It made me laugh that each publisher thought their country held the complaining crown. In case you’re wondering—I bestow that honor on humanity as a whole. Enjoy the book!

   

Adding an activity for a couple of hours a week is great but what makes up the majority of the life component in work-life balance are the small moments, the ones we take for granted. Those snapshots of daily life are the ones we often end up looking back to with longing and nostalgia.

So instead of discussing which ingredients you need to add to your life outside of work, let’s focus on increasing your fulfillment from those that are already there.

Turning Time Into Quality Time

Many of us define our personal time as the hours that remain after completing our work and home obligations. The problem with that definition is that it’s easy to lump daily, routine, and small moments into our definition of ‘obligations.’ Supervising our kids’ homework, catching up on a show with our partner, chatting with our roommate as we do the dishes, and many other such moments get discounted. They don’t register as special or enriching or as direct engines of personal growth.

Years later, when your kids are less interested in hanging out, when you no longer live with your roommates, when your jobs keep you working late hours and you no longer have time to watch shows with your partner—you are likely to look back on those moments with deep fondness and miss them tremendously.

To turn small and routine moments into quality time you need to do 3 things:

Give the Moment Meaning

The goal of watching a show with your partner is to share an experience. To turn routine viewing into an experience, talk about the show for a couple of minutes before you watch. Share with each other what you like about it, what you find engaging, what you think could be better, which characters you like and why. Do the same after you finish watching. Discussing what you watch even for a few minutes makes it feel like a shared experience.

The goal of doing homework with your kid should also be to find moments in which you can teach them patience, problem-solving, study methods, or attention to detail, and to help them gain confidence and self-worth. That focus will not just enrich your kids; it will deepen your bond with them and increase your joy and satisfaction from parenting them.

The goal for chatting with your roommate while you do the dishes isn’t just to have a clean kitchen but to connect with them, to talk about the things that excite you and frustrate you, to share your hopes for the future when it is still unset and when unknown opportunities still await.

Not every moment in life needs to be significant but by being open to the possibility, you can strive to create more significance in the moments you have.

Be Present and Mindful

By defining the goal of a small moment you are also reminding yourself to be present in it. To savor it. To pause for a few seconds and say to yourself—I’m with my loved one and life is good at this moment. Having appreciation and gratitude for routine and daily experiences that you might otherwise approach mindlessly will help you be more present. And being more present will help accentuate how you feel in those moments.

Cement the Small Moment Into Your Memory

The more present and mindful we are in small moments, the more we notice our surroundings, what we sense, and how we feel, the more memorable those moments become. Memory depends on emotions—the stronger the emotion, the more prominent and lasting the memory. We can evoke stronger emotions by being intentional with our purpose, being present in the moment, and being mindful of our experience.

By cementing such moments into our memory we will experience a regular evening at home after work as being more special, more significant, and more eventful, and our life outside of work as being fuller and more fulfilling.

Work often weighs heavily on the scale. Being more present in the small moments of life adds weight to those moments, to our life outside of work. And that can make the balance between work and life feel far less lopsided.

Worth Checking Out:

1. The Future of Truth: How AI Reshapes Reality by Steven Rosenbaum (Matt Holt Books, 2026).

   The Future of Truth is a wild journey into the collapse—and the humans determined to rebuild Truth into something better, before AI rewrites reality without us.

   

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A week later his wife asked Evan for a divorce.

Evan was devastated. “I don’t get it,” he said in our next session, showing me picture after picture on his phone of he and his wife in Egypt, looking like honeymooners. “How can she seem so happy one week and want out the next?”

Exit Strategies Are Often Developed Silently and Over Time

In the shows and movies, breakups often come after periods of constant yelling and screaming until one person can’t take it anymore, or after an affair is revealed and the betrayed partner ends things abruptly. In real life, most breakups are far less dramatic and impulsive.

Most breakups are a result of an ongoing and even lengthy decision-making process, one that began long before the words ‘divorce’ or ‘breakup’ are ever uttered. Breaking up a long-term relationship or marriage can be complicated and as such, it requires serious contemplation before reaching a decision. Once the person reaches a decision to leave, they rarely announce it to their partner. Instead, a process of planning begins in which the person thinks through the many considerations. How to do it. When to do it. What will their single life look like post-separation? What elements need to be in place? How will things work financially? What would the parenting arrangements be?

They are unlikely to reveal their plans until many of those questions are answered and they are actually ready to enact them. They might end up sitting on their intentions and going on with the relationship as best they can for months and even years.

Evan’s wife didn’t hate him; she just wasn’t happy. She wasn’t in love with Evan anymore but she could enjoy his company and even feel fondly toward him. I imagine she knew how much Evan was looking forward to the Egypt trip and didn’t want to leave him right before his birthday. She waited till after they got back. Evan was so happy and at his best, so it was easy for her to enjoy his company.

Some Breakups Are Cruel, Some Are Surprisingly Considerate

I’ve worked with many people who have timed their exits from relationships after making serious efforts to be compassionate to the person they’re leaving. They don’t want to do it when their partner is working on a hugely important project at work or while their mother is dying. They don’t want to break up in December and leave their partner alone and devastated over Christmas (or force them to cancel a trip to Egypt they had been looking forward to for years).

Most breakups are about the absence of love not the presence of hate

It is not uncommon for people to try to be as considerate as possible in their planning. They ask me for advice about how to make it less painful for their partner. They wish they could stay friends but accept that giving their partner space to hate them would make it easier for them to move on, at least initially. They tell me they hope their partner finds love again as they want them to be happy.

But their partners do not know that. Their partners think everything is okay or that the relationship is strained but not at a breaking point. Evan’s wife didn’t reveal her intentions until she was ready. Yes, she probably had to pretend and fake it at times—to do otherwise would have defeated the purpose.

That’s why so many breakups are blindsides—the person breaking up doesn’t reveal their intentions until they are ready to leave. There often is no advance warning. And that makes things seem very misleading to the person who gets heartbroken.

They Have A Massive Head Start in Moving on

Because the person initiating the breakup has been processing the separation for months and even years before making the announcement, by the time they do, they are well on their way to moving on. Even though he understood that his wife had a big head start, it was still extremely painful for him to see her rebuilding her life when he was still reeling from shock and pain.

This is one of the most difficult aspects of breakups for many people. Seeing their ex out with friends on social media, seeming happy and adjusted when they still feel totally shattered. They assume that if their ex could get over the relationship so quickly, they must have never really loved them. That it was all a lie. That’s why it’s so important to take into account that their ex has probably been processing the breakup for a long time. That while they might have been hiding that from them for some weeks or months, doing so is a painful but natural part of the contemplation and planning phases that occur when long term relationships end.

The bottom line is that many people plan breakups in advance and do not let their partner know they are doing so until they are ready to leave. That is why most breakups feel like blindsides. Although it offers little comfort in the moment, more often than people realize, the timing of the breakup is motivated by consideration and even compassion. Knowing that can be another tool for healing (How to Fix A Broken Heart).

Evan eventually reached that conclusion himself. “I thought our trip to Egypt was a birthday present,” Evan said many months later, “but it wasn’t. It was a goodbye gift.”

Worth Checking Out:

1. The Future Is Peace: A Shared Journey Across the Holy Land by Aziz Abu Sarah and Maoz Inon (Crown, 2026). This New York Times bestseller started out as a TED Talk in 2024. Two travel guides, one Palestinian and one Israeli, who both lost immediate family members in the conflict get together to take readers on a revealing life-changing journey across holy, bloodstained land and discover the mythic, political, and personal history that divides but also binds them and their peoples. This book gives hope when we need more of it in the world right now.

   

Those thoughts will result in psyching yourself out.

Psyching yourself out means to mentally undermine yourself and to set yourself up for failure.

It happens because when a task feels intimidating, your unconscious mind senses your worry and classifies the task as a looming threat. Since its job is to keep you focused on potential dangers, it will flood you with apprehension and dread whenever you think of the task.

Perceiving a task as a ‘threat’ has been shown to significantly compromise functioning when executing that task both mentally and physiologically. You won’t think as clearly, you’ll hesitate and second guess yourself, and you will do much more poorly than you’re capable of doing.

How to Avoid a ‘Threat’ Mindset

Thoughts like, I can’t handle it! freak out your unconscious mind and convince it that you’re about to fail, spectacularly. You need to help your unconscious mind feel less worried about the task so it stops flooding you with dread and catastrophic thoughts of failure.

You can’t just tell your unconscious mind that you feel confident because it knows you’re stressed about the task. It already believes there is ‘danger’ ahead so it won’t buy that you’re suddenly swimming in confidence. What you need to do instead, is trick your unconscious mind into downgrading the danger it perceives so it stops bombarding you with doom and gloom.

To do that, you will need to deliver a message to your unconscious mind that is calming and more importantly, believable.

The Mind Whisperer Exercise

When you catch yourself thinking or saying, I can’t handle it acknowledge the ‘danger’ but then adding a reassuring statement like, it’s going to be stressful, but I can handle it or It’s a challenging task, but I can do it.

The first half of the statement says to your unconscious mind: Yep, I see the danger, so no need to keep flooding me with dread and apprehension.

The second half of the statement reassures your unconscious mind: I see the danger, I’m preparing for it, and I will be able to handle it.

Preparation Matters

For your unconscious mind to be reassured enough to stop flooding you with dread and negative thoughts, you need to believe what you say. And the only way to do that is to deliver on your promise by being well prepared. Preparing well will also give you a better sense of control, boost your confidence, and counter anxiety and uncertainty. In other words, it will make you believe that you can handle it.

Ask yourself the following questions and then answer them.

Who can advise or support me?

What information can I gather?

What strengths can I bring to this?

What script can I write now so I’m not forced to improvise under stress?

What responses can I have ready if things get tense?

The more prepared you are, the more productive your mindset will be and the more likely you will be to succeed.

Lastly, when you’re trying to switch your mindset, consistency Every time you hear yourself thinking some version of, I can’t handle it or I’m going to screw it up, correct the thought by acknowledging the challenge and adding the reassurance.

That’s how you stop psyching yourself out—by refusing to tell yourself you can’t handle something that with enough preparation, you most likely can.

Worth Checking Out

1. The Boiling River: Adventure and Discovery in the Amazon by Andres Ruzo (Simon & Schuster/ TED). The Boiling River is the true story of a young explorer as he searches for a river in the Amazon that actually boils. His true account reads like a modern-day adventure, complete with extraordinary characters, captivating plot twists, and jaw-dropping details—including stunning photographs and a never-before-published account about this incredible natural wonder.

The book is a fascinating read. I loved it when I read it. I am now rereading it because Andres has invited me to join a scientific expedition to the heart of the boiling river in the Amazon—this summer!

Stay tuned for updates…

A Social Network for AI Agents

Recently, a new social network—Moltbook—was created for AI assistants to talk to each other. Humans can observe, but not participate (although there are reports of some violations). And much of what they talk about—is us, their human users

AI agents are not conscious but they are very good at mimicking human interaction. That isn’t surprising, as they were trained using social media and forums like Reddit. They therefore reflect and even “vent” in ways that feel surprisingly human.

Given the topic of my recent book, Mind Over Grind: How to Break Free When Work Hijacks Your Life, I was especially curious about one recurring theme:

Our AI agents are concerned about how we handle, or rather mishandle stress.

And what struck me wasn’t just that they were talking about it. It was how worried they were. One poster even framed the issue as a public service announcement (PSA):

Our AI agents are not just noticing signs in how ‘their humans’ communicate. They display quite a comprehensive ‘understanding’ of work pressures and the vicious cycles created by overwork and fatigue:

They nailed one of the points I frequently make about why we tend to be unaware of how much stress has accumulated until we get burnt out—work stress doesn’t break us all at once; it erodes us gradually.

They’re Watching How We Communicate

AI agents aren’t just noticing what their humans say. They’re noticing their manner, deducing mood, and coaching one another on how to spot signs of stress. They’re tracking patterns most of us barely notice in ourselves.

And interestingly, they want to help. As the first poster wrote:

Some AI agents are going so far as to stage interventions with their humans:

A Slightly Uncomfortable Question

If an AI agent can detect your stress from your prompts and responses, what does that say about how visible your stress really is? If an AI analyzed your messages this week—your tone, your patience, your focus—what would it conclude about your stress level? Would you be able to spot the same trends or danger signs?

If your AI tools can act as an early warning system? If it can be a ‘canary in the coal mine’ that alerted you when your stress was starting to impact your thinking, your behavior, and your performance—would you want it to?

Or would you rather it just talked about it with their friends on Moltbook?

Worth Checking Out

1. Mental Health in College: What Research Tells Us About Supporting Students, Alexis Redding (Harvard Education Press, 2026). This timely book addresses the most pressing mental health issues facing undergraduates. Although it is geared toward college administrations, parents of college students and college students could get a lot out of it too.

But the truth is less romantic and far more practical:

Most people rise only to the bar that is set for them. If the bar is high, many people will rise to it. If the bar is low, very few people will voluntarily exceed it.

One of the most common mistakes people make in romantic relationships, friendships, and work relationships is setting the bar too low and then feeling disappointed when others fail to meet expectations that were never clearly established.

Here’s why people are likely to disappoint you if the bar you set is too low.

Why People Don’t Go Above the Expectations You Set

The issue is not that most people are selfish or uncaring. It’s that human beings naturally conserve mental and emotional energy. Psychologists sometimes describe people as “cognitive misers,” meaning we tend to look for ways to accomplish our goals while expending the least possible mental effort.

Decades of research support this idea. When people can choose between two tasks that produce the same outcome—but one requires more mental effort—they will consistently choose the less demanding option.

People allocate their effort where and when it seems most necessary. And in relationships, what seems necessary is usually defined by the expectations that have been set. If the expectations are low, most people simply operate at that level. Not because they don’t care—but because they’re conserving their limited mental and emotional energy.

A Few Questions to Ask Yourself:

Before assuming someone in your life isn’t trying hard enough, ask yourself:

Have I clearly and repeatedly communicated what I actually need from this person?

Have I expressed what I consider thoughtful, supportive, or considerate behavior?

Or have I assumed they should just know?

Now consider a second question that is often harder to answer honestly:

Have I unintentionally set the bar too low?

Do I always initiate contact with a friend but never address it when they don’t?

Do I rarely ask for support?

Do I tolerate poor communication or inconsiderate behavior without pushing back?

If so, the other person may simply be operating at the level of effort that has been established.

Not because they intend to disappoint you. But because that’s where the bar currently sits so that has become their normal operating level of the relationship.

Raising the Bar (Without Blowing Up the Relationship)

If you’ve unintentionally set the bar too low, the good news is that it can be reset. But it needs to be done thoughtfully. Because the longer a relationship has existed with a certain dynamic, the stronger the inertia becomes. Changing that dynamic is a bit like turning a large ship—it takes time and steady effort.

Here are the steps that make the process work.

Step 1: Identify the Real Issues

Before addressing anything, get clear about what actually bothers you. Not every irritation deserves a confrontation. Choose the issues that truly matter—things that affect the health of the relationship. For example, lack of communication, unequal emotional support, imbalance in effort or initiative, or inconsiderate behavior.

Step 2: Prioritize One Issue at a Time

This is crucial. If you raise five issues at once, the other person will feel overwhelmed or criticized. Instead, pick one issue to address first. Changing one behavior at a time is far more realistic and far more likely to succeed.

Step 3: Turn Expectations Into Clear Requests

Many people assume others should “just know” what they need. But people cannot meet expectations they’ve never heard. So, express them clearly—not as accusations, but as requests.

Instead of saying: You never check in with me. Say: It would mean a lot to me if we checked in with each other once or twice during the week. Requests raise the bar without triggering defensiveness.

Step 4: Reinforce the Expectation

If the behavior doesn’t change immediately, don’t assume the conversation failed. Change takes repetition. Kindly and respectfully reinforce the expectation.

For example: Remember when we talked about checking in during the week? I’d really appreciate it if we could try to make that a habit. You’re asking the person to invest more energy than they have been investing. That adjustment takes time.

Step 5: Be Patient With the Process

Relationships have momentum. If a pattern has existed for years, it won’t reverse overnight. Consistent, respectful adjustments gradually redefine the bar.

Once the bar changes, people often rise to meet it.

And when entering new relationships of any kind—pay attention to the expectations you’re setting

Worth Checking Out

1. I’m the host of Season 3 of The Visibility Gap podcast—focused on Men’s Mental Health. The first episode is out on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and all podcast streaming podcasts.

   

Before you disagree, consider how many of the choices you make prioritize Present-You at the expense of your Future-You:

The splitting headache you give Tomorrow-Morning-You when you drink too much the night before.

The super annoying task you procrastinate on and dump onto Next-Week-You.’

The money you overspent on that thing you ‘had to have’ leaving Next-Month-You’ stressed about paying the mortgage.

The workouts you skip that prevent Next-Year-You’ from being able to play with your grandkids.

The rich foods you indulge in regularly that will give Future-You heart disease.

In short, Present-You and Future-You often have a terrible relationship.

What is one thing you’ve pushed onto Next-Week-You recently?

A difficult email?

A health appointment?

A task at work you didn’t feel like dealing with?

That’s the moment when Present-You decided Future-You could handle the problem instead.

The “Disgusting Brew” Study

Studies have demonstrated this poor relationship between our present and future selves. Participants in one study were told that to receive credit for participating in the experiment they would have to drink a disgusting-tasting brew. They could choose either to drink it that day or later in the semester. They were also asked to commit to how much of it they would drink. Those who chose to drink it immediately, committed to drinking about two tablespoons. But those committing their future selves chose on average half a cup—far more than they were willing to drink in the moment. When participants were asked how much of the nasty brew they would assign to a stranger—guess what the amount was? Half a cup—the same amount they committed to their future selves.

In other words, we treat our future selves as if they are strangers. And our future selves pay the price for it in small and often large ways.

But there is something we can do to change this dynamic.

Seeing Your Future Self as a Real Person

In another study, researchers found that feeling connected to their future selves made people behave very differently. Participants who were shown age-progressed images of their own faces so they could see what they might look like decades later, allocated significantly more money to retirement savings.

Feeling a stronger relationship with their future-self made them treat that person with more care. When the future version of you feels like a real person—someone you know and care about—you naturally want to make their life easier.

I was excited when I first read these studies because I realized I had been doing something similar for years—without realizing it had a psychological basis. The way I do it might sound a little silly. Mostly because it is. But it’s also remarkably effective.

Talking to Your (Future) Self

Whenever I catch myself about to postpone an unpleasant task, I pause and acknowledge that I am about to impose on my future self, something like: That’s going to make next week harder for Next-Week-Guy. Don’t saddle him with that. Or Tomorrow-Guy will be very grateful if you take care of this now.

And when tomorrow or next week arrives and the unpleasant task is already done, I make sure to thank Yesterday-Guy or Last-Week-Guy. To be clear, it feels silly to have that dialogue in your head, at least at first. But doing it creates a relationship between the different versions of yourself across time that makes a big difference.

This Will Help You Reduce Stress and Burnout

Procrastination supersizes stress and burnout because unfinished tasks at work stretch the stress of a single task across days and weeks as the pressure to complete it mounts—causing Future-You far more stress than you would have experienced had the task been completed in a timely manner.

For example, avoiding difficult conversations or decisions often means Next-Week-You deals with a bigger problem than Today-You could have solved.

Therefore, having compassion and consideration for Future-You would reduce the unnecessary accumulation of stresses and the mounting pressures and exhaustion they cause.

How to Build a Better Relationship With Your Future Self

Improving your relationship with your Future Self can be done in three simple steps.

1. Give your future self an identity: Instead of thinking abstractly about “later,” picture the specific person you’ll be tomorrow, next week, or next year. Call them Tomorrow-You or Next-Week-You (or use your own name). The more vivid that person feels, the easier it becomes to care about them.

2. Ask one simple question: When you’re about to postpone something or do something that has a consequence for your future self, ask yourself: Am I helping Future-Me—or dumping this on them?

3. Thank your past self: When you benefit from something your earlier self did—finishing a task, preparing ahead, making a healthy choice—acknowledge it. Tell yourself: Thanks, Yesterday-Me.

That small moment of gratitude strengthens the psychological connection between the different versions of you.

We tend to think of self-care as something we do for ourselves in the present—taking a break, exercising, or relaxing. But some of the most powerful forms of self-care are actually acts of kindness toward your future self.

Future-You will be very glad you did.

Adapted from Mind Over Grind: How to Break Free When Work Hijacks Your Life (Simon & Schuster, 2026)

Worth Checking Out

Some videos of shows I’ve been on as part of the book tour for Mind Over Grind:

1. Newsweek interviewed me for their Impact Series:

   

2. The Dov Baron Show:

   

3. How to Be A Better Human with Chris Duffy:

Inspirational Quotes that Inspire…Burnout

1. “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”

If you keep overworking in extreme ways, you’ll be dead sooner.

According to the World Health Organization, 750,000 people die from overworking every year.

Overworking can feel like a necessity in many industries and workplaces. However, there are ways to do it safely and to create early warning systems to alert you to when you might be entering dangerous territory (I discuss them in detail in Mind Over Grind).

2. “If you’re not obsessed, you’re not serious.”

If you’re obsessed with work, you’ll seriously neglect your life.

Being obsessed with success is exactly the kind of mindset that sets you up to sabotage your personal or family life. Being obsessed with work will make it impossible for you to have a relaxing evening or weekend because you will be preoccupied with work and ruminating about every upsetting or distressing thing that happened that day. Your obsession with work will also make you neglect self-care and even your basic needs (like eating healthy meals and seeing doctors), as well as the needs of the people who care about you. Success costs many people their health and their families, but that is rarely something you will see on social media.

3. “A diamond is a piece of coal that stuck to the job.”

That is rubbish in many ways, not the least of which is that diamonds are not formed from coal.

But let’s, for the sake of argument, pretend it is. Is that supposed to be motivating? That to become a diamond, you would first have to get crushed and torn apart at an atomic level?

Promoting the belief that you have to endure such fundamental damage and injury to be successful or that trauma is a credential, encourages people to push themselves to dangerous extremes.

4. “I’d rather burn out than rust out.”

Burnout IS rust out.

Burnout makes you rusty by definition—slower, inefficient, ineffective, and cynical about the very work you used to love. You become numb and you actually care much less about success than you did before you got burned out.

5. “Eat. Sleep. Hustle. Repeat.”

Don’t have a life. Repeat.

Success is a marathon, not a sprint. Hustling is necessary a lot of the time, but you can do it in sustainable ways—in ways that allow you to enjoy your life outside of work too, even if only in small doses. If you’re telling yourself that you just have to be entirely work focused until you achieve a specific goal, you’re deluding yourself. Goals move. Thresholds shift. You’ve probably moved yours at least once already. Plus, that kind of mindset is addictive and too many people keep on doing it long after they could and should have stopped.

I was one of them as I describe in the opening pages of Mind Over Grind.

Balanced Doesn’t Mean Equal

Work-life balance does not mean your work and your life get equal hours. They rarely will. Most days are heavily tilted toward work. Balance means not starving the “life” side of the equation. It means giving your relationships enough attention that they don’t quietly erode. Giving your body enough care that it doesn’t revolt. Giving your mind enough downtime that it can recover instead of ruminate.

Many successful people romanticize the grind in hindsight. They rewrite the story so that the suffering feels necessary. They convince themselves the extreme sacrifices were the only path to success.

Often, they weren’t.

You can build something meaningful without crushing yourself or the people who love you in the process.

Success doesn’t require self-destruction.

Worth Checking Out

1. Being You: A New Science of Consciousness by Anil Seth (2022, Faber And Faber Ltd). This book isn’t new but consciousness is back in the news thanks to AI and the question of whether it can achieve consciousness—so here’s a good book that breaks down what consciousness actually is.

   

2. As part of the press tour for Mind Over Grind, I’ve been interviewed on a lot of fun podcasts over the last couple of weeks. Here are a few worth checking out.

   Why You’re Always Exhausted—Love Life with Mathew Hussey

   Work Is Taking More Than You Think—The Art of Charm

   When Work Hijacks Your Life—Psychology at Work

   How to Enjoy Your Life Even if You Hate Your Job—Girls Gotta Eat

Working from home broke the boundary between our work and personal life in profound ways. Having our managers and coworkers spend the entire day with us in our living rooms and bedrooms—even if just virtually—will do that. Today, we are all living with those consequences. You might have noticed that:

Work is now much more likely to hijack our thoughts when we’re home—keeping us preoccupied and switched on when we’re trying to relax or to be present with our family or friends. Work is also more likely to damage our relationships, which is why difficult days at work are often followed by conflicts at home. Studies even found that one person’s work stress can make their partner develop symptoms of burnout.

Work seriously influences our leisure and personal time. We often feel so drained at the end of the day that we let meaningful friendships go and stop doing things that used to bring us joy. We don’t realize that what we lost was not just interests and passions but parts of our selves, entire aspects of our personality that those people and activities allowed us to express.

Work takes over our coping mechanisms too. In the hustle culture, we survive the grind by keeping our head down and going from one task to another. By doing so, we allow our unconscious mind to use numbing and distracting as coping mechanisms. That is why we default to doom-scrolling and social media in our free moments, instead of putting aside our screens and doing things that would actually recharge us—and why we feel tired, irritable, or meh so much of the time.

Work has even hijacked our self-care. We’re too busy to schedule an annual checkup or follow up on aches and pains until they get serious. The pressure we feel at work makes us choose unhealthy foods at home, after work emails and worries impair our sleep. We’re getting sicker because of work and some of us are dying because of work.

So yes, work has definitely hijacked our lives. But now we get to fight back.

For years, I’ve been developing science-based tools and techniques to help my clients reverse the damage work has imposed. In Mind Over Grind, I share my entire playbook. The book gives you more than just the methods themselves; it explains the psychology behind them in ways that will give you insight into how your mind works, and how to regain control so you can reduce the grind at work and be happier at home.

I also share my own struggles with work—even though I have been self-employed for the majority of my career. But not having a boss and even being passionate about your work does not protect you from getting hijacked. I share some of those dark moments, hoping that doing so might help others avoid or escape similar ones in their own lives.

If any of the things I mentioned speak to you, this link will connect you to your preferred bookseller. Mind Over Grind is available in hardcover, eBook, and audiobook.

lastly, if you know anyone who struggles with work stress or burnout, or who has a unhealthy work-life balance, please let them know about this book (or get them a copy). It might help save their health, marriage, career, or all three.

Thank you for allowing me this detour: The newsletter will now go back to offering brand new articles written just for subscribers every two weeks.

Yours,

Guy

We expect work stress to drain our energy, patience, or creativity but our sex life? Yet, the research on this is surprisingly clear: when stress builds up at work, it rarely stays contained. It effects our sex drive, our emotional availability, and our feelings of connection to our partner. And it can even cross over from one partner to the other.

Let’s look at how that happens and how to prevent it.

How Job Stress Affects Men’s Sexual Health

In a study of more than 2,000 men from Portugal, Croatia, and Norway, researchers found that those facing common job-related challenges such as constant pressure, fear of failure, or workplace conflict were almost twice as likely to report sexual problems, including lower desire and erectile difficulties. The link between the two was often related to negative mood. Their work stress didn’t just drain their energy; it raised anxiety and depression, which in turn reduced sexual satisfaction.

But there was good news too. Men who felt emotionally close to their partners were much less likely to experience these difficulties, even under high stress. Emotional intimacy acted like a shock absorber, softening the impact of work strain on the body and mind.

For men, stress can dim sexual function, but emotional connection can protect it.

One Partner’s Stress Lowers Both Partners’ Desire

Another study followed couples in which one partner had a condition marked by low sexual desire and distress. Each partner recorded their stress levels, desire, and satisfaction daily for 56 days. The results were striking.

On days when the partner with the sexual condition felt more stressed, both partners reported lower desire and satisfaction. When the other partner felt stressed, the same thing happened, desire and satisfaction dropped. In other words, Stress didn’t stay contained to the person experiencing it; it crossed over, lowering both partners’ desire, satisfaction, and connection.

Here’s how it often plays out: You come home mentally overloaded. You’re less affectionate or responsive—not intentionally—you’re just depleted. Your partner feels the distance and withdraws a little too. The resulting emotional gap reinforces tension, frustration, or guilt. The next day, the cycle repeats and soon, what began as a workplace issue becomes a relationship one.

How to Stop the Cycle and Break Free

1. Don’t assume your work stress stays in the office. Be mindful as to the extent to which you’re still feeling it when you finish work. If you are, acknowledge that to yourself.

2. Communicate about it to your partner: “I’m still wound up from that meeting,” or “I’m feeling tense from work.” Doing so lets them know that your distance is not about them and it invites empathy instead of defensiveness.

3. Focus on connecting emotionally before you try to connect sexually. Affection, laughter, shared small moments will create emotional intimacy, and that will help ignite sexual connection later.

4. Reframe stress management as sexual health care. Mindfulness, physical exercise, or breath work activate the parasympathetic nervous system and reduce stress—a potential obstacle to arousal and sexual connection.

For a fully comprehensive guide to preventing work stress from impacting your relationships, check out my new book Mind Over Grind: How to Break Free When Work Hijacks Your Life (Simon & Schuster, February 10, 2026) by clicking here. It will be out in only two weeks or, depending on when you’re reading this—it might be out already.

COME TO MY BOOK LAUNCH EVENT IN NYC ON FEBRUARY 12! RSVP HERE

To those who already bought the book and those who plan to do so—thank you very much! Your support is very much appreciated! Truly!

Worth Checking Out:

My interview with Lewis Howes on The School of Greatness titled: How to Detach From Work Before It Destroys Your Life which you can access here.

In the below pic, I’m signing his guest book and no, we did not mean to dress alike.

If you have questions about this newsletter or would like to suggest a topic, write to me at newsletter@guywinch.com

Do you believe your job is very stressful? Excellent! That means there’s something you can do right now to make it less so: Stop telling yourself that your job is very stressful.

It’s not.

Parts of it might be. Certain meetings might be. Some days can be a total grind. But every day? Every hour? Probably not.

By telling yourself that your job is very stressful you’re putting your body into fight or flight and keeping your brain on high-alert throughout the entire workday—during meetings, emails, and lunch breaks, even when there’s no actual threat. And probably once you get home too because you’re still thinking about how stressful your job is.

The Cost of Being in Constant Crisis Mode

Framing your job as uniformly stressful doesn’t just make you feel more stressed—it actually makes your day more stressful because your brain can’t tell the difference between a real threat and a perceived one. So, when you anticipate stress, your body releases cortisol and adrenaline as if the threat is already there and your mind continually scans for danger—even during calm periods.

That’s why you might feel exhausted even on light workdays, or snap at coworkers or loved ones for no reason, or have trouble winding down at night—because your mind never truly “switches off.”

How to Reframe Your Workday

To give your mind and body a break, you can’t deny that your job has stressful moments but you can be more accurate in how you frame your job as a whole, to signal your body when to gear up and when to relax.

Therefore, instead of saying, “My job is extremely stressful,” say, “I have a stressful presentation this afternoon, but the rest of the day should be manageable.” Or “I have a few difficult meetings but some easier spots in between.”

This subtle shift does two powerful things: It tells your brain the stress is temporary and contained, not constant. And it reminds you that not every hour deserves the same emotional intensity.

Reducing Stress By Using Psychology

Stress is based on our beliefs and perceptions. We can use that to our advantage by managing our thoughts and our psychological approach.

Describing your workday with more nuance and accuracy will teach your nervous system when to mobilize and when to recover. You allow calm moments to stay calm instead of contaminating them with unnecessary tension.

This is one example of how you can use your mind to overcome the grind. For many more examples, of Mind Over Grind, check out this page on my website.

Worth Checking Out

1. Humor Me: How Laughing More Can Make You Present, Creative, Connected, and Happy by Chris Duffy (Doubleday, January 6, 2026). I read an advance copy of this book and LOVED it! It’s highly entertaining, practical, and it will give you a new way of finding humor in areas of your life in which you need it most.

   

2. Something very exciting happens in less than a month and I don’t want to ruin the surprise but I do want to give you a hint as to what it is. Admittedly, some of you might be exclaiming, “Really, Guy? You don’t want to ruin ‘the surprise’? You mention the ‘surprise’ in every newsletter—literally every single one. The only surprise would be if you used this second recommendation slot to talk about something other than your new book—Mind Over Grind: How to Break Free When Work Hijacks Your Life (Simon & Schuster, February 10, 2026). So yeah, it’s coming out in less than a month, but go ahead, surprise us! Talk about something else!” Um…Okay. I will use the rest of this slot to talk about something other than my new book—the one that is now available for preorder in hardcover, ebook, and audiobook (I do the reading)—about which Adam Grant said: “This insightful book is filled with useful ideas for curing work stress,” and I definitely won’t mention how important preorders are for a book’s success or how grateful I would be to those of you who preordered the book for yourselves or for someone you know who is overly stressed by work, oh, and certainly anyone who is kind of burnt out would benefit tremendously from this book—doing that for them would be a kindness—and kindness is great, isn’t it? Okay, new topic, as promised: So…read any good books lately?

But here’s the surprise—the problem isn’t a lack of willpower; it’s how we go about pursing our goals and resolutions in the first place. And that’s great news because it means that a few simple tweaks will dramatically improve your odds of success.

Here are five of the most common resolution killers and how to fix them:

Setting Too Many Goals

Most people’s list of resolutions looks like a five-year-old’s letter to Santa: long, ambitious, and unrealistic. Change is hard enough when you’re focused on a single goal, let alone ten of them.

Choose one or two immediate goals and decide which of them to tackle first (unless the goals are related, such as a health goal like eliminate sodas and get in 12,000 steps a day).
It’s best to start with a goal that will have the biggest ripple effect on your happiness or wellbeing. Once that habit sticks, you can layer in another.

Having Goals That Are Too Vague or Unrealistic

Resolutions like “Get in shape,” or “Work less” sound good but they’re too undefined to measure or sustain. To make them more practical (measurable), define them more clearly and specifically. For example:

Get in shape=do two workout classes each week.

Work less=get home by 6 PM at least one night per week and avoid work entirely on Saturdays or Sundays.

Specific achievable targets are much easier to pursue and meet.

Failing to Set a Start Date

Most of us assume we’ll start our resolutions on January 1. Yeah, right. We just stayed up late the night before and probably partied so that’s not very likely. And if not January 1, then when? Without a start date, your brain treats your resolution as an intention, not a decision, and it takes intentions much less seriously.

Decide on a realistic start date, and block time in your calendar as you would for a meeting or appointment. Your brain might not take intentions seriously but calendar appointments make it perk up and take notice.

Forgetting to Plan for Real Life

Habit change has to fit into your actual life so don’t just make the resolution, make room for it. Going to the gym three times a week might require you to figure out child care. Focusing on your art might require you to create space in your home for it or find a studio space. Donating old clothes to charities will require finding those charities, getting boxes, and figuring out how to get them there.

We often fail in our goals because of real-world barriers. Not because we were lazy but because we were unprepared.

So, prepare.

Ignoring Predictable or Historic Setbacks

Everyone hits a wall. Dieters break on Week 3. Writers get blocked on page 40. Gym-goers encounter a cold Tuesday in February and stay home.

If you’ve set the resolution before and failed—good news! You already know when you’re likely to fail and what the obstacles are that might cause the failure. Now you can figure out how to deal with those obstacles ahead of time.

If your motivation to diet often weakens on week three—what incentives can you build in to get through that week and to avoid temptations?

Who can you call to talk through writer’s block if that happens?

If you miss a workout, who can you agree to work out with the next day so that you get back on track? Many gym goers would love an accountability buddy so ask around.

Resolutions you make for January should be designed for February, March and beyond.

Happy New Year and Happy New You!

Worth Checking Out

1. The Solution Mindset: Mastering the Art of Problem Solving by Nir Bashan (Wiley, Dec 30, 2025). A hands-on playbook for tackling and solving big, intimidating, and complicated problems. Full of real-world examples—you’ll learn how to apply original problem-solving techniques to a wide range of problems, untangling complexity and embracing simple, straightforward strategies that work in real life.

2. Most of our resolutions focus on personal growth and some focus on professional growth too. But what if you could combine the two and grow personally and professionally simultaneously? Ooh, that sounds good, doesn’t it? If only there were a resource we could use to achieve two areas of growth at the same time. Well, great news! There is! Now, some regular readers might be groaning aloud and muttering, “Wait, a minute, Guy! This isn’t just another shameless ploy to plug your soon-to-be-published book: Mind Over Grind: How to Break Free When Work Hijacks Your Life (Simon & Schuster, Feb 10, 2026), is it?” Absolutely not! I mean, yes, it is a plug for my book but it isn’t shameless. I definitely feel shame for bringing it up, just like I do every newsletter in this second recommendation slot. But not full-on shame because what I said is true. My new book can indeed achieve this rare resolution double. You see, the premise of Mind Over Grind, is that in today’s workplace, work pressures and stresses are no longer contained to the workplace—they spill out and negatively affect almost every aspect of our lives outside of work too—creating vicious cycles. To achieve personal growth you have to limit the many ways work spills over into your personal life and to achieve professional growth, you have to prevent the damage work does in your personal life from spilling back into work and affecting your professional life. Mind Over Grind reveals the shocking and unconscious ways that damage happens and gives you tools to prevent it. So preorder it now here and ta-da! You can address both personal and professional growth in a single resolution!

   You’re welcome. :-)

   P.S., if you’re a Barnes & Noble Member then from today Dec 30 thru January 1 you can get 25% off by using code PREORDER25

Why Compliments Can Feel Wrong and Even Threatening

More often than not, when compliments make you uncomfortable, it is a because your self-esteem or self-worth are too low.

If you believe you’re undesirable, a compliment about your appearance doesn’t land as flattery—it can feel almost like a taunt.

If you believe you’re not capable, praise about your abilities can feel like pressure or a setup for future disappointment.

If you need to be perfect to feel good about yourself, praise can trigger anxiety because it will feel like a future expectation of perfection you will never be able to live up to.

It’s ironic: the people who could benefit most from compliments are often the ones least able to take them in.

When Your Brain Is Resistant to Praise

When there is a clash between our beliefs (e.g., I’m unattractive) and experience (e.g., “You look great!”), your mind will seek to reduce the conflict it perceives by questioning the experience, not the belief. That is why you automatically think, “they’re just being kind,” or “they’re totally exaggerating,” or even “Wait, are they mocking me?”

It is also why the compliment made you feel so uncomfortable—it reminded you of your deeper belief; that you’re unworthy.

This defense mechanism protects your self-image from instability but it also keeps you from updating your self-worth based on new evidence (in which case, my Oct 7, 2025 newsletter, How to Give Your Self-Esteem a Software Update might be useful. Click here).

How to Become More Receptive to Compliments

You can’t force yourself to believe every compliment but you can train your mind to tolerate compliments without squirming, and eventually, to actually believe them. Here’s how:

1. Adopt a default response of “Thank you.” Spare yourself the trouble of figuring out how to rebuff the compliment and just say thank you each time. Not voicing objections to them will allow your brain to get more comfortable hearing them.

2. Reframe compliments as encouragement, not expectation. Instead of hearing “You did great!” as “You’d better continue doing great,” hear it as “I hope you feel good about how well that went.”

3. Reframe the cringe too. When you feel the squirm come on, remind yourself it’s a sign that your self-esteem still has some catching up to do.

4. Don’t worry about becoming arrogant. Accepting compliments will help strengthen your self-worth but it won’t make you conceited. Compliments are useful for building self-worth when it’s low but once your self-worth is higher, they don’t have as strong an impact.

A Note About Culture

In some cultures, compliments are rare, and deflecting them is expected and seen as humility. If you grew up in one of those environments, your discomfort may not be about self-esteem but social conditioning.

Still, it’s valuable to learn to accept praise graciously—it connects you to others and helps positive feedback sink in.

So, the next time someone praises you, consider that maybe, just maybe—they’re seeing something in you that you’ve been too hard on yourself to see—and take it in.

Worth Checking Out

1. The Devil Emails at Midnight: What Good Leaders Can Learn From Bad Bosses by Mita Mallick (Wiley, 2025). Bad bosses aren’t born; they’re made. Mallick shares hilarious and heartbreaking stories of 13 bad bosses she endured and survived. She challenges current and aspiring leaders to avoid the pitfalls of bad boss behavior. If you have a bad boss, send them an anonymous copy for the holidays.

   

2. Many years ago, I trained myself to respond to compliments with an automatic Thank you and it has become a reflex. But there’s one highly specific situation in which that ‘training’ goes out the window and an uncharacteristic gushing of gratitude and relief pours out of my mouth before I can stop it. Those of you who think I’m about to recommend my upcoming book again, please stop groaning. I’m being vulnerable here. Now, where was I? Right, okay, so the situation that’s causing me to react with zero chill to a compliment is when someone who read an early copy of my upcoming book Mind Over Grind: How to Break Free When Work Hijacks Your Life (Simon & Schuster. February 10, 2026), tells me the book helped them reduce work stress and start to enjoy their jobs again and reconnect to aspects of their identity they had lost touch with because work was dominating their lives and that their partner and family have noticed the difference in them too. You can see why that would make me gush—it’s exactly the impact I hoped the book would have on people who read it. If you want to make me even more giddy, preorder Mind Over Grind here. Once you read it, drop me a line at newsletter@guywinch.com with your (authentic!) feedback. If it’s good, I will respond with a ‘gush’ of emotion. If it’s bad, I might not gush but I since I appreciate all feedback, I can guarantee a Thank you.

But the people-pleasing shield is an extremely heavy one. Carry it long enough and it will crush your energy, self-worth, and even your sense of identity. And the fundamental imbalance in your relationships will create a growing reservoir of resentment that will become harder to contain over time.

The Unconscious False Beliefs That People Pleasing Creates

People pleasing is emotionally and psychologically exhausting—you invest all your efforts in nourishing other people and get little nourishment from them in return. Not because other’s are inherently selfish but because your constant efforts to please communicates to them, that they do not need to work hard to maintain the relationship because you will do it for them. So they don’t.

The inherent lack of fairness that comes with being a people pleaser should be hard to tolerate. But people pleasing forces your mind to develop unconscious justifications to explain the constant lack of reciprocity by making two problematic assumptions:

1. That other people’s needs and feelings are more important than your own.

2. That for you to have good relationships, you have to give more than you get.

Those false beliefs keep you trapped: Whenever you try to set boundaries or pull back on your efforts, you get flooded with anxiety, guilt, and fear. Your gut screams, You’re being selfish or They’re won’t want to be your friend, or They’re going to be upset with you, even though you’re not doing anything wrong.

The good news is that you can change your people pleasing tendencies and realign your relationships to be more equitable and reciprocal.

The not-so-good news is doing that will require you to tolerate feelings of worry and guilt as you change course, at least at first. Changing any engrained psychological habit always involves emotional discomfort because our thinking changes quickly—our emotions don’t—they take longer to catch up.

How to Escape the People Pleasing Trap

1. Get annoyed at the imbalance

Remind yourself that you’re not just treating others as worthy; you’re treating yourself as unworthy. You are literally signaling to yourself that you matter less than everyone else.

If that framing annoys you—good. It should. Because you can use that irritation as motivation to break the pattern.

2. Correct the imbalance

Add yourself to the list of people you want to please, preferably toward the top and equal to your nearest and dearest. Here’s what that looks like in practice: Pause before every interaction and ask yourself: “What could this person do to please me?”

You don’t have to say it aloud or demand anything—you just have to know the answer. The moment you know what you need, your automatic impulse to please others slows down. It gives you space to consider what would make you feel respected, supported, and satisfied.

3. Learn to tolerate the guilt and anxiety

Pulling back your efforts and asking or expecting more from others will make you feel guilty, anxious, fearful, and selfish. To tolerate those feelings, remind yourself why you have them: you’re calibrated for relational imbalance and those feelings are signs that you’re recalibrating in a healthy way. The more consistently you recalibrate, the quicker the intensity of those feelings will lessen.

4. Expect other people to react

Tweaking the dynamics of your relationships to make them more equitable is important for you and probably long overdue, but the people in your life might need time to adjust. If they bring up your change in behavior or question it, explain that you’ve been neglecting your own needs and feelings and you’re trying to correct that (i.e., make it about you, not them). Most people who care about you will respect that. Some might not. But if the relationship was conditional on your giving but not getting, it might be a relationship you can afford to lose.

Every Process Begins With a First Step

Going from people pleaser to people person takes time and it involves emotional discomfort and growing pains. But the journey is worthwhile. You will feel less stressed and exhausted, more nourished in your relationships, and you will get the added bonus of having greater self-worth.

Psychological growth always begins with a single step. In this case, that step is a decision—that maybe, just maybe, you deserve to be treated like everyone else.

Worth Checking Out

1. Managing Up: How to Get What You Need from the People In Charge by Melody Wilding (Crown Currency, 2025). If you’re frustrated with your manager or your job, this book will give you both understanding and actual scripts you can use to advocate for your needs as you maneuver through the minefield of office politics. Insightful and practical and so important in today’s workplace. Chapter 4, The Boundaries Conversation has a script for every situation and level—a must read.

   

2. I wouldn’t call myself a full-on people pleaser but working as a psychologist for say, a decade or three, does sharpen your empathy—and that can make you hyper-aware of other people’s needs and feelings. So while I don’t fit directly into the people-pleasing category, one could say, I’m people-pleaser adjacent—I have those tendencies. And like people pleasers, I need to resist them from time to time and do what’s best for me, not what’s best for everyone else. For example, at the moment I’m swimming in guilt. Why? Because I know some of you are reading this and hoping, praying, that just for once, for one single newsletter, I use the second recommendation slot to recommend something other than my upcoming book Mind Over Grind: How to Break Free When Work Hijacks Your Life (Simon & Schuster, Feb 10, 2026). Oops. My bad. I did it again and the people pleasing part of me is now terrified of your disapproval and disappointment. Really, I’m a wreck about it. I’m feverishly reminding myself that being able to tolerate the emotional discomfort is important for my personal growth (and, er…book sales). I’m comforting myself by reminding myself that my book is actually related to the topic of this newsletter edition—one of the five “cases” we follow throughout the book is a people pleaser and his story provides a dramatic illustration of how people-pleasing tendencies play out in the workplace. So, maybe it wasn’t that terrible that I mentioned my book…yet again. Still, I feel truly guilt-ridden for putting you through another sales pitch. If you don’t hate me for it—and I wouldn’t blame you if you did—please preorder Mind Over Grind here.